This is the day either earmarked as the start of financial Armageddon in the Scottish Premier League, or a brave new dawn.

Scotland's top flight is entering uncharted territory. A campaign will kick off without Rangers in the highest league, something historically regarded as an impossibility.

Fears of meltdown for clubs carrying heavy debt burdens are yet to turn into anything more concrete. The Dundee United chairman, Steven Thompson, has claimed that the main television deal set to be ratified by clubs on Friday is little different commercially to the one which expired at the end of last season. Those quick to paint an utterly bleak scenario – including people in high Scottish football office – have no evidence to back up their outlook just yet.

SPL chairmen did something which, sadly, is regarded as novel these days. They listened to their own supporters. That led to Rangers being denied immediate re-entry to the Premier League after the troubled Ibrox club reformed as a new company.

Now, there is an obvious obligation on the fans who campaigned so hard for Rangers to be kept out to turn out to support their own clubs. Celtic, Hibernian and Hearts are among those who have urged their followers to buy season tickets. By the end of the season, it would prove depressing if those chairmen are forced to complain of "supporters" who didn't afford their club reciprocal backing.

Integral to any level of sport is competition. The SPL will retain that, but surely only among the 11 teams competing below Celtic. Neil Lennon's team is priced as short as 1-50 to reclaim the championship; there will be few takers at odds starting at 40-1 for any of the rest.

Still, there is plenty of scope for intrigue. The Dundee derby will make a welcome return to the top division for the season of 2012-13 and two Highland teams, Ross County and Inverness Caledonian Thistle, will face each other in the SPL for the first time.

It may be seen as an empty contest, but the reality is that Hearts, Dundee United and Motherwell should be energised by the opportunity to finish second, with enhanced European opportunities. All too often in recent times, the Old Firm have been virtually guaranteed to occupy the Premier League's top two places before a ball was kicked.

There is no question that antipathy towards Rangers has energised supporters' groups elsewhere. Yet St Johnstone, Motherwell and Dundee United attracted crowds of 6,023, 9,035 and 9,977 for their first – non-televised – qualifying fixtures in Europe.

Such attendances are decent enough, little more, with expectation lowered by the chronic over-pricing and mundane set-ups which havedriven people away from domestic fixtures. Until SPL clubs collectively work to cut prices and remove an utter dependency on television contracts, they remain part of a flawed product.

More immediately, St Johnstone have been eliminated from European competition, Motherwell will almost certainly drop out of the Champions League's qualifying phase next week and Dundee United face a highly onerous task to make it beyond one tie after a 2-2 home draw with Dynamo Moscow.

It will therefore, most probably, be the responsibility of Celtic in the Champions League to halt the worrying reduction of Scotland's European co-efficient. Such facts hardly tally with the contrived theory that the SPL is flourishing; in relation to the rest of the continent, Scottish football's stock is far from high. That is neither a fresh phenomenon nor a negative sentiment – merely reality.

What the game north of the border retains are high interest levels, even more so now given Rangers' demise. The Ibrox outfit seem perfectly content to plot their way back to the upper echelons from Division Three.

For those who remain in the SPL, the bid to minimalise or eradicate any gap Rangers may have left now starts in earnest. A fascinating few months await.